A printer is a useful output device that prints the data from a computer into a printing material like paper. There are various types, the most common ones being inkjet and laser. Inkjet is very useful to reproduce true colours, which only a very expensive laser one can produce. However, the printing speeds are lower and the text quality can be low when compared to laser. The running costs can be higher as well. But overall, for an all-round use, the inkjet is useful.

In a laser printer, the speed is very good and the output quality is also very high. However, the cost of toner cartridges for the laser types is higher when compared to the ink cartridges.

The next feature is monochrome or colour printer. A monochrome produces black and white images only, which is useful for printing text, but is not very appropriate for photo printing and other colour printouts. For an inkjet printer to print both black and white text and colour images, 4 colours should be available in the cartridge.

There is a feature called PictBridge, which allows transfer of photos from a memory card of a digital camera into the printer directly and produce colour photos printout. The print size and other features can be altered in the camera itself and the printout can be taken directly.

While purchasing printers, it is better to have an idea of the cost of cartridges and the availability, as at first some printers might be cheaper to buy, but the cost of the consumables would be so high and also difficult to locate, that buying the expensive version becomes more cost effective in the long run! Also in all-in-ones, it is important to check out the memory capacity, when it falls short of printing papers. This is evaluated in MB; the more the memory capacity, the speeder the printer.

The drivers are given along with the software. The updates for the drivers are made available in the manufacturer’s website itself. Many all-in-ones give the facilities to fax, copy and scan without the PC switched on, which saves time. Printing speeds should also be considered, while buying. The competent ones give about 20-25 black and white pages per minute. However, the colour pages take time depending upon the image resolution etc.

Power consumption has to be taken into consideration. Some models can waste a lot of electricity, when in stand-by mode. Also the various types of printing modes offered has to be analyzed as well, with the common ones being standard, typically draft and best designed. This allows the running costs to be kept minimal. There are various media types wherein the print can be done. This includes different shapes, sizes and types of papers, CD/DVD, labels etc. Appropriate printers should be used for the specific needs.

Some also offer printing at both the sides, which is a very good and useful feature for many. The final thing to be noted is the connections. Mostly the latest versions have USB ports to attach to different USB devices. Also some are equipped with Ethernet facilities as well.

Printers are very advantageous and also come in various models and types, to suit different needs and necessities. Choosing the right model saves time and also proves useful, along with being cost effective as well.

Visit Computer Printer Reviews website to find best buys and reviews on Dell Computer Printers.

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Introduction

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is a rapidly growing way of delivering business applications in companies. Today, there are over 120 vendors providing solutions across more than 40 business areas, everything from sales force automation to accounting, web development to dispatch management.

Initially, SaaS appealed to small and medium-sized businesses that were constrained by people resources and the level of investment required by large software vendors. However, a recent Forrester research showed that SaaS is no longer just an SMB play; large enterprises show significant interest in SaaS. Around 15% of SMB and Enterprise companies across North America and Europe are already using one or several SaaS solutions. The era of the ship it on a CD, load it on a server enterprise software is over

Its popularity is growing because companies can be up and running in a matter of weeks not years, running costs are predictable and business units can eliminate dependence on I.T.

However, the first wave of SaaS adoption was driven by end-users, not IT. Next wave will need an end-user and IT message.

Why is I.T Uneasy About SaaS?

For many reasons is the short answer. Perhaps the biggest of all is the perceived loss of authority, control or importance because the rest of the business can potentially by-pass I.T altogether.

I.T would also have other concerns; security, compliance, integration with other systems and the rest.

I.T leaders want to ensure their teams are seen to add value to the businesses they support, rather than be the hurdle that their colleagues have to jump over to get things done. They have aligned their work to business strategy and do everything to prevent being associated with another failed or late IT project.

Understandably they feel threatened that they will be blamed yet again if others make a mess of a SaaS implementation. Quite rightly so, because there have been many cases where business went ahead and started using a SaaS solution without even involving I.T only to demand integration or support services 6 months down the line.

Why I.T Needs To Fully Embrace SaaS

The role of I.T is changing rapidly. Long gone the days when “keeping the lights on” justified existence. Business wants more and they want it faster. Outsourcing and off-shoring have had mixed results in keeping up with business demands.

A conventional CRM or ERP implementation requires significant resources to define business requirements, design, develop, test, acquire hardware and network infrastructure, operate, support and of course project manage the whole thing. Costs invariably exceed budget. Deadlines become missed milestones. Users struggle to adopt new ways of working. More than 50% of projects fail to deliver benefits on time or the planned ROI. This cycle starts again during major upgrades and releases. Often minor but important changes have to wait until they can be consolidated into the next release

On the other hand, SaaS implementation places a dramatically reduced demand on the most valuable IT resources who can focus their efforts on ensuring rapid configuration and deployment actually enables their businesses to win more business faster and at less cost.

No need to buy or lease hardware. Security is taken care of. Do you have enough system and database administrators with right skills? Well, who cares? It’s all done for you. Reliability? Most well-established SaaS solutions offer 99% uptime or above. There is no need for additional backup storage. Someone else worries about designing and developing enhancements and upgrades or retaining expensive programmers or expert support staff.

Software-as-a-Service lets companies use their valuable resources on simplifying business processes, building interfaces to other systems and most importantly on proper change management. Investment can be channelled to improve user experience and adoption and eliminating inefficient workarounds.

With careful planning and execution, implementing a SaaS business application across the company is much faster. Partnering with business will help IT to shake off its labels like ‘bottleneck’, ’slow’ or ‘unsupportive’.

A SaaS deployment for around 100 users takes 2-3 months to set up and costs £250,000 over 4 years including upgrades. ROI greater than 100% are commonplace. This is compelling when compared with the convention of £1 million internal custom application development or packaged software deployment which delivers an order of magnitude savings and benefits don’t start appearing under 12 months.

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I.T must treat SaaS like on-premise deployments - collaboratively working with the business to define requirements, redesign business processes, selecting vendors to make sure integration and customisation capabilities can meet the needs, and doing business justifications for new projects.

But I.T must also adjust to the unique aspects of SaaS when thinking about:

- Re-skilling. This is a clear win-win for both I.T team members and the company. Moving away from traditional infrastructure skills and support model to business analysis and project management significantly increases the value-add of I.T and gets staff closer to the people who drive the business.

- Contracts. IT departments experienced with ISV and outsourcing contracts will be in a better position than most business users to negotiate with SaaS vendors, but additional considerations apply. Because SaaS solutions are usually down for maintenance and upgrades, firms must specify whether the SLA covers total downtime or only downtime outside the vendor’s planned downtime windows. Firms must also consider data ownership issues. Make sure you get your data back for free at the end of the relationship, and make sure that you can get data dumps as needed for backup or analytics.

- Integration. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Many vendors offer prepackaged integrations to systems like Oracle, SAP, and Siebel, including some integration-as-a-service offerings. Ask the vendor to provide customer references for integration and learn from their mistakes and successes. Also take advantage of online developer communities when you have questions. Most importantly, find out whether the solution can support the type of integration you need before you make a buying decision. Most customers that we’ve spoken with are not doing integration in real time but are doing nightly or weekly updates instead.

- Customisations. Unlike on-premise or outsourced software where you own the code and have full liberty to modify it. But design and testing can take a long time, needs high skills and carries some risk. With SaaS you are limited to the customization tools exposed by the vendor, add-on solutions, and custom scripts that the vendor supports. SaaS applications are less configurable than the packaged applications most enterprises run in-house, but changes can be implemented and tested very quickly. That’s often a blessing in disguise because it forces the business to use standard processes rather than invest resources in customizations that have no real value.

Summary

SaaS will account for an increasing proportion of IT implementations. It will change the profile of skills that IT has to deliver and reduce operational overhead. A strategy to adopt SaaS will require an internal programme to change IT organisations.

Alp is an internationally experienced senior executive with a track record of successful creation of I.S strategies and delivery of global/regional/local I.S solutions and change management programs. He is the Professional Services Director for Xenogenix, leading UK CRM Consultants.

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Focus On Style At Expense Of Function

Most mobile phones are clearly statements of “form follows function”. While they may be candy bar, flip phones or sliders, they all have to do more or less the same thing. It’s a recent trend among phone manufacturers, but one that we’re (sadly) growing accustomed to, to try to differentiate a phone based on slapping a label on to it of some fashion designer, trying to make it “look stylish”, and charging three to four times what a phone of comparable functions would actually be worth. LG’s Prada was the start of this marketing concept, and in spite of negative reviews, it appears that no idea can be so bad it can’t bear repetition, particularly when the markup on the phone itself is so high.

If you’re guessing that I’m not in the target demographic for “designer phones”, you’re almost certainly right.

The latest proof that fashion conscious people are expected to go for style over substance is the Samsung Giorgio Armani. A revamped version of their P310 and P300 mobile units, the Armani replaces the oh-so-tacky (and oh-so-useful) regular buttons with a largish touch screen. It’s got a bronzeish colored metal bezel and a non-stick coating, and it’s styled to go well with “Men’s Wear” colors. On the other hand, unless you’re planning on showing it off to your mates, once it’s in your hand and you’re talking on it, hardly anyone will notice the phone at all. It comes with a tooled leather flipcase, and all in all, it’s quite slim and trendy looking. Easy to slip into a shirt pocket and all, it won’t look quite like a “brick on your belt” that larger smart phones tend to.

In terms of functionality, it’s a straight up GSM phone without 3G wireless connectivity. The touch screen gives it an attempt at the iPhone’s cachet, but the user interface is nowhere near as responsive as an iPhone. There’s a noticeable lag between pushing an icon and having the application run; the clever “pinch” and “spread” maneuvers on the iPhone aren’t replicated here. There are two analog buttons for start and end calls on the front, and the right hand side of the mobile has the volume rocker, the on/off button and the new universal power/data connector port (which matches the later Samsung 600 series phones.)

As a phone, sound quality was adequate. Signal strength was good. The touch screen interface, and the integrated software, mostly work. There are some oddities – the calendar and organizer applications don’t communicate with each other. The “fingerswipe” to go through menus works, but not always reliably, and like any touch screen device, the front surface requires maniacal rigour in cleaning the fingerprints and grease off of it from routine operations. The user interface is clearly ported from some of Samsung’s other touch screen phones – all the menu items still have numerical shortcuts, for a physical keyboard that’s no longer present.

In addition to the now obligatory music player, it’s got the also-obligatory 3 megapixel digital camera (but no autofucos), using an LED flash. Picture quality was sharp, the flash was better than expected.

While not a horrible device, the Armani costs more than comparably equipped phones; it’s roughly on a par in price with the Nokia N95, for example. If you absolutely have to have a masculine looking cellular phone as part of your fashion ensemble, this one will do.

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